Cast and Creative Team Bios & Photos
Debut Episodes
"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster
In 3 parts, release dates:
September 17, 2020: "The Air-Ship"
September 24, 2020: "The Mending Apparatus"
October 1, 2020: "The Homeless"
E.M. Forster (Author) was a novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. His humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howards End.He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj. Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. He is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised for his attachment to mysticism. His other works include Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Maurice (1971), his posthumously published novel which tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.
Gendell Hing-Hernández (Director) was born in Havana, immersed in its dynamic theatrical community. Since 1997 the Bay Area has been home, where he works as an actor, director, and teaching artist. Gendell brings theater education to classrooms, libraries, and jails, collaborating with Bay Area theaters. As an actor, performances include Oedipus El Rey, Arctic Requiem, Blood Wedding, Oil! Chapter One: The Ride, Beatbox: A Raparetta, and Stories by Lucia Berlin. For Word for Word, he has directed Citizen by Greg Sarris, and Blue Ruin by Katherine Lieban a winner in Word for Word's Short Story Festival last November.
David R. Molina (Sound Design and Original Music) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, music producer, and instrument inventor. He has created music for all the performing arts, multimedia installations, film, and radio, nationally and internationally, for the past 24 years. He’s won many awards and residencies. His instruments and collaborations were featured at SFMOMA, The Broad Museum (L.A.), Oakland Museum of California, McLoughlin Gallery, and SOMArts. Band collaborations: TAU (Berlin), Emanative (UK), El Paso (Peru). His bands are: Impuritan, Ghosts and Strings, and Transient. His most recent work with Word for Word was the original music and sound design for Retablos: Stories from A Life Lived Along the Border.
Carla Gallardo (Cast - The Attendant/Ensemble) is a Bay Area actor and a proud member of the Oakland Theater Project (formerly Ubuntu Theater Project). Recent credits include: Cheer! : Story of a Dreamer (Teatro Cultural), Romeo & Juliet (Ubuntu Theater Project), In The Heights (Custom Made Theater), Hamlet (Ubuntu Theater Project), Where The Boys Are (FaultLine Theater), To The Bone (Ubuntu Theater Project), Más (Ubuntu Theater/Laney Project), The Grapes of Wrath (Ubuntu Theater Project), This Golden State (Magic Theatre).
Susan Harloe (Cast - Vashti) The Founding Artistic Director of Word for Word, Sue has originated roles in many of the company’s productions (The Standard of Living, Xingu, Rose-Johnny, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, In Friendship, Dolly, Anniversary!) and is the creator and manager of Word for Word’s France tour. She has an MFA from U.C. Davis, an MLS from the University of Pittsburgh, and a BA from San Francisco State University.
David Everett Moore (Cast - Kuno) is thrilled to be working with Word for Word once again! David has performed with many Bay Area theaters, including Aurora Theatre Company, Marin Theatre Company, Crowded Fire Theater, Marin Shakespeare Company, African-American Shakespeare Company, Perspective Theater Company, Livermore Shakespeare Festival, and San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, for whom he is currently performing (online) in King Lear. Regional credits include work with Capital Stage Company, Colorado Shakespeare Festival and Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Favorite roles include Addison in Safe House for Aurora Theatre Company, BJJ in An Octoroon for Capital Stage Company, and Black Man in We Are Proud to Present for Just Theater. David is a Resident Artist of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival and a proud graduate of UC Berkeley, where he earned his BA in Theater and Performance Studies.
Brian Rivera (Cast - The Speaker/Ensemble) has previously worked with Word for Word in the school tour of The Master-Maid as well as the sold out, extended run of Amy Tan's Immortal Heart. Brian last performed onstage in Translating Selena for Campo Santo. He made his Broadway debut in the Tony Award winning revival of The King and I at Lincoln Center and subsequently traveled in its first national Broadway tour. Other credits include the US premiere of The Orphan of Zhao at A.C.T. and La Jolla Playhouse, Major Barbara at A.C.T and Theatre Calgary, Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Yellowjackets, and California Shakespeare Theater's American Night. Brian can be seen as a principle character in the dark Christmas comedy Bitter Melon, available on Amazon Video and Google Play. He can be currently heard in Tales of the Resistance, San Francisco Mime Troupe radio play episodes available at www.sfmt.org. Brian is a proud member of AEA and SAG/AFTRA.
Ryan Tasker (Cast - The Machine/Ensemble) has appeared in Word for Word productions of Three on a Party and You Know When the Men Are Gone, as well as acting and directing for their Off the Page series. He has recently worked with Marin Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theater, and Livermore Shakespeare Festival, among others.
